


What Kind of Girl is She?

by freyafrida



Category: Midnighters - Scott Westerfeld
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-02
Updated: 2010-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:06:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freyafrida/pseuds/freyafrida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who the hell is Jessica? Melissa? What kind of girl is she? Sometimes I wonder if she even likes me. Jessica and Melissa contemplate their friendship, or lack thereof.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Kind of Girl is She?

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the song "What Kind of Girl is She?" from [title of show]:
> 
> Who the hell is Heidi (Susan)? What kind of girl is she? Sometimes I wonder if she even likes me.

Melissa can't quite put her finger on why she hates Jessica so much. Well, not _hates_ , really. Melissa doesn't hate her - at least, she doesn't think so. Because Melissa's hated plenty of people, and it doesn't quite feel like this.

It's just - she's so irritatingly _normal_ , with that happy, complete family. She's got a million friends, it seems like, and she and Jonathan are so sugary-sweet that Melissa's not sure whether to vomit or to be jealous that she will never be that way with someone. Jessica gets along with Dess, can make the polymath smile sometimes; Jessica gets along with Rex, who respects her even though she's dating Flyboy. Jessica gets along with _Constanza freaking Grayfoot_ , which is a feat even for a daylighter. Jessica Day is everything Melissa can't stand, everything Melissa isn't, everything Melissa will never be.

But she's not jealous. Not at all. Melissa doesn't do jealousy; jealousy is for the insecure girls desperately hanging on to their boyfriends, or for the bitter losers who can't accept defeat. Melissa is not a jealous person. She's learned that a long time ago. And besides, Melissa's tasted jealousy before - been choking on it, actually, since the day she ws born, almost. And this weird feeling she's got about Jessica Day is deeper than the sour possessiveness of high school and teenagers, deeper than feeling pathetic and "replaced" by a just-barely midnighter (even if, God dammit, everyone else just _loves_ her).

Maybe that's Jessica's real talent, not this flame-bringing crap that's swelling her head right now. Jessica Day has some sort of twisted thrall over people - how else can she get them to surround her, to _love_ her the way they do, in spite of all her faults? Melissa will own up to being a bitch any day of the week, but at least she can safely say that she's not as selfish and whiny as the flame-bringer. Right?

The saying _green with envy_ crosses her mind, but Melissa scratches that one, too. Envy is wanting what someone else has and...okay, so maybe Melissa would like to have what Jessica Day has - a fully functioning family, friends she can hug and touch, who _want_ to hug and touch her, a power that doesn't involve a constant headache - but God, just the idea that she wants anything of Jessica Day's makes her feel a bit sick. (Still, a little part of her brain marks it as _'envy: has possibilities'_.)

Melissa doesn't do this jealousy, envy, wishing-she-was-someone-else crap. She's tasted it a million times, and she knows that it's pointless. People can never turn into someone else, and the person they want to be like is never worth it anyway - Melissa would know. And Jessica Day is, of course, not worth it. Little Miss Daylight has family and love and touchy-feely, but she's selfish and stupid and obsessive over every little nuance of her "relationship" with Flyboy ( _okay, so maybe sometimes Melissa enjoys her talent_ ) and she's just so _blah_ and _daylight_ and Melissa's thoughts are spinning around so fast that she's giving herself a headache.

She doesn't feel anything but apathy towards Jessica Day. The mind noise of the new school year is messing up her emotions, that's all.

And yet...

(envy: has possibilities)

Jessica doesn't know why Melissa hates her.

So, okay, Jessica is only this side of civil with her, but Melissa totally started it, what with the "your eyes are wrong" and "you don't belong" and "tastes like vanilla" and "so daylight" and, just, Jessica could go on forever about it, but she always refrains, because Melissa is a bitch goddess and they all know it. It's not like Jessica ever has to spell it out.

Ugh, but still.

It's not like Jessica doesn't feel a teensy bit bad for Melissa - yeah, it must suck, mind noise, blah blah blah. Sure, she may have locked her sister in a closet, but it's not like Jessica Day doesn't have room for pity. And yeah, she pities Melissa. (And okay, maybe the knowledge that Melissa hates pity is what makes her do it. Jessica has room for bitchiness, too.)

She just can't figure out the _why_. The other midnighters fully seem to like her, even Rex, the reigning king of Melissa-land. (He's kind of Melissa's lapdog, isn't he? And then Jessica kind of wishes she hadn't thought of it that way, because now she's not sure she can look him in the eye.) Dess likes her too, and okay, Dess isn't totally fond of Melissa, but the two girls are similar enough to make Jessica wonder. What is it about her that rubs only Melissa the wrong way? She knows Rex's seer-knows-all attitude pisses them all off occasionally, and Jonathan's complete lack of responsibility of any kind grates on everyone's nerves, but what makes Jessica so special that only Melissa seems to be bothered by her? (Unless, of course, the rest of the midnighters are incredible actors. Which makes Jessica feel really self-conscious.)

She knows she shouldn't care, because it's not like Jessica totally loves Melissa. So in theory, Melissa's antipathy towards her should make her happy, a mutually beneficial relationship: I hate you, you hate me. But Jessica does, because, well, in a way, Melissa is the last piece of the midnight puzzle. Jessica can fight darklings on her own now, thank you very much, she has a flying boyfriend, and she's reached a stage of comfort with Rex and Dess. It's only Melissa that's missing, the only piece of midnight she hasn't connected with yet.

(The idea of connecting with Melissa kind of makes her sick. She's seen what connecting with the mindcaster can do.)

But Jessica knows she won't ever get up the nerve.

Melissa scares her too much.

* * *


End file.
